


Dear Jamie

by RadioActive



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Astronomy, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 14:13:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3939832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadioActive/pseuds/RadioActive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie believes himself to be quite ordinary until he receives a letter from Earth Two- a planet identical to Earth, where an identical copy of him, and everyone else on Earth, exists.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We Haven't Met

**Author's Note:**

> This is based briefly on the movie Another Earth. I'm just using the premise of a second earth, but I watched it a couple years ago and didn't even get halfway, so I'm not sure how original I'm being. There's also mention of a major character death later on, but it's kind of complicated. That's about it!

When Jamie turned eighteen, he bought himself a pack of glow in the dark stars. He had always been a fan of sprawling galaxies, vast moonscapes, and vibrant nebulas. Unfortunately, his mother had never let him put anything up on his walls, not even flimsy plastic stars that would have barely lasted a year. So when Jamie finally moved away for university and began to rent out an apartment, he took it upon himself to fulfill his most prominent childhood wish. He spent hours that day looking up his favourite constellations and recreating them on his bedroom walls. When the sun finally set, and the stars peeked through the rapidly darkening sky, Jamie stepped into his own personal galaxy. His room glowed so brightly that he felt comfortable enough tossing his night light into a drawer. He didn’t need a night light. He had dozens of them. He felt a little ashamed of his childish need for a nightlight, but he wasn’t the first university student to feel the pangs of homesickness. 

It wasn’t uncommon for people his age to harbour a passion for space and its diverse composition. Public interest in space exploration had soared after the discovery of earth two. At first there was fear, but once people realized the inhabitants of earth two did not pose a threat, they began to feel curiosity about their earth two counterparts. Earth two was an exact copy of earth, physically speaking. However, the citizens of earth two, while seemingly identical to those of earth, had undergone slightly different experiences. While someone could be kind and gentle on earth, their earth two counterpart could be cold and hostile. It was a controversial subject. Millions of dollars had gone into research about earth two, about its origins, its proximity and the effect it had on earth, and especially the link between two copies. 

Many people attributed the sudden appearance of earth two to a divine being. Some called it the apocalypse. Some called it salvation. Jamie didn’t know what to call it. He was a biology major, with a keen interest in astrobiology, and was as enthused at the prospect of his own copy as anyone else. That changed when he received the first letter. 

It had been a brisk morning in November, and Jamie had just returned from a rushed meeting with his group members for a statistics project. Stepping into his heated apartment building with a relieved sigh, he began his Friday routine- checking for mail, phoning his mom, and making an attempt at cleaning his apartment. As he waited for the elevator to arrive, he skimmed through the assortment of mail he’d received. One letter stood out between the glossy sheets of advertisements. At first glance, it appeared to be a regular envelope. When he flipped it over, the stamped insignia of the United Nations stared back at him, and directly underneath was his name written in cramped writing. His stomach twisted at the thought that he’d unknowingly done something to justify the wrath of the UN. The ping of the elevator doors opening tore him from his thoughts, and he let out a breathy “oh my god,” before climbing on. He lightly traced over his name as the elevator shakily rose to his floor. He decided to wait until he was in the safety of his apartment before beginning to panic over the actual contents of the letter. 

He let himself into his apartment, threw away the junk mail, and lowered himself into the sole mismatched chair at his kitchen table. He claimed the faded yellow matched his walls, but in reality, he kept it because he loved getting a rise out of his mom, just like the rest of his siblings. When his family visited his apartment for the first time, his mom had chided him for his awful interior designing, but sitting in a chair his mother loathed gave him the smallest bit of comfort. 

He carefully ripped open the envelope, letting a tightly folded letter drop to the table. He ran his fingers over the velvety paper as he tried to calm himself down enough to read it. 

“Please don’t be bad. Please don’t be bad.” He pleaded as he unfolded the letter.

_Dear Jamie,_ it read. _If you’re anything like me, you’re probably freaking out right now. Don’t worry bud, you’re not in trouble. That stamp is only there because this letter is coming from “earth two” as you guys call it (which is hilarious, since we were the first earth). I still can’t believe you’re actually going to be reading this. It honestly took me ages to convince them to let me send you something. I had to go through a background check, and a psych evaluation, and to a meeting with the actual IPF, but it was worth it. I still think it’s stupid to have to go through so much security if I want to contact you. Don’t we both have free speech? Anyways, I should probably introduce myself before I get into why I’m writing you. My name is Jamie Benn, and I’m your copy from earth two. I want to tell you about Tyler Seguin._


	2. One Day We Will

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took ages. Writing is hard.

The letter wasn’t long. The meaning wasn’t shrouded by delicate phrasing. It told the story of Tyler Seguin, a man that his copy had fallen in love with on earth two. Their love wasn’t anything like Jamie had imagined. It didn’t make him sigh with envy, or smile with fondness. It sounded considerably painful, and Jamie wondered why anyone would subject themselves to a relationship so poisoned with misery. But despite its dark content, the letter had a certain charm to it. Jamie had never experienced anything like the epic love the letter described. He’d dated, sure, but he couldn’t think of any person worth writing a letter to his copy about. He figured this Tyler Seguin guy must have been awfully special to Jamie. His heart ached with want, imagining himself with someone that made him want to permanently capture every moment spent together in ink. 

Jamie gently tucked the letter back into its corresponding envelope. While the letter had erased any concerns about accidental law breaking, it had raised an issue utterly foreign to him. He had always prided himself on being independent, always capable of overcoming his own obstacles, but at the moment he felt hesitant. He had always known his copy existed, but he had never given much thought to what implications that had. He’d never questioned whether his copy had swam in the ocean, or tried beef jerky, or whether he was as intrigued by the human body as he was. He wondered if they both parted their hair the same way, or whether his copy felt as self-conscious of the remnants of baby fat on his cheeks as he did. It was a comforting thought, that there was a person in the universe that understood him almost as well as he did himself. The knowledge that his copy was interested in him, and wanted to share an important part of his life with him, opened up a realm of possibilities he had never considered. 

Jamie had included information on how to reach him if he wanted, so he began to compose a response in his head as he went about prepping a sorry lunch for one. He thought about asking about his family, and what they were like on Earth two, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know. He didn’t want to hear about his brother being anything other than Jordie, or even worse, not existing at all. By the time he had a grilled cheese melting on a plate, his turmoil of thoughts had practically chased his appetite away. He absently chewed on his lunch, mulling over the peculiar way the letter had ended. 

_We were really good together. I know it doesn’t sound like it, but I think he helped me be the best possible version of myself. It’s such a cliché thing to say, but I’m serious. His damn stubbornness made me more open minded, and his competitiveness brought mine out too. And he was just so refreshing, you know? I don’t know if you’re as shy as I am, but I can get pretty quiet around people. Sometimes I feel like I don’t have anything important to say, but not with Ty, not ever. He had this way of making you feel like the only thing he was focused on was you, that everything you said was noteworthy. Like as if everything you said was already written in Shakespeare’s diary or something. If you’ve ever met someone you literally couldn’t get enough of, well, that was Tyler. He was a black hole and he was sucking me in and I knew it. I know you’re shaking your head at how dumb that sounded, because that’s what I’m doing too. Don’t worry, your copy isn’t usually this much of a dud, and I did have an actual reason for writing you. It wasn’t just because I wanted to share the most remarkable (while admittedly draining) romance of my life. Tyler and I aren’t together anymore, and I don’t think I’ll ever get to see him again. Wow, I really didn’t think it would hurt so much to write that down. I know I won’t ever be able to fix things with my Tyler, but I can guarantee you that when you meet your Tyler, it will be the most extraordinary moment of your ordinary life._

He wondered briefly whether the letter was a prank, but thinking back to the genuine emotion expressed in the letter immediately erased any suspicions. He would never let himself believe the letter was a promise, but he could already feel the stirrings of hope emerging, and he hated it. He didn’t want to long for a meeting that would likely never happen, whether that desire was conscious or not. He thought about the chances of meeting Tyler while out running errands. He didn’t know anything about Tyler apart from his name and what Jamie had written, but even that was useless, because the Tyler on earth could theoretically be completely different from the Tyler on earth two. While Jamie was intrigued by the idea of copies, he wouldn’t pretend to know the specifics of the phenomenon. He didn’t know the possible range of diversity between copies, and even if the two were identical, Jamie’s description was heavily biased. 

He didn’t even know what the guy looked like. He tried to conjure an image of Tyler, but all he could picture was a pair of warm brown eyes. Jamie had practically babbled for an entire paragraph about their “really rich brown- think fresh coffee with the warmth of hot chocolate” shade. He wouldn’t be surprised if Jamie had a notebook filled with sentimental poems about them. It made his stomach twist to imagine Jamie waxing poetic under the pallid light of a lamp, weaving poetry for a man that would never read the earnest words forming the threads. He could picture himself in Jamie’s place, bitter with regret but desperate to salvage a relationship he would never be a part of again. He had felt heartache before, but never to the extent his copy had. In a way, it was one of the most beautiful parts of being human, because feeling heartache meant getting to fall in love all over again. He wouldn’t say he’d ever been in love, but he had felt the butterflies in his stomach and the reflexive fondness whenever someone he liked did something silly. He wondered if Jamie had ever felt fond of Tyler when he did something ridiculous, probably just to startle a laugh out of Jamie in the first place. And just like that, Jamie felt a tenderness begin to grow towards someone he had no right to feel anything about. He didn’t want to think about Tyler Seguin anymore, because Tyler was someone else’s, no matter how identical that someone else was to Jamie. 

With a dejected sigh, Jamie cut off his train of thoughts. He considered calling Jordie and asking for advice, but the story he’d been told felt too intimate to share. He didn’t know how copies were connected, but whatever that link was, it transcended the physical realm. Jamie wasn’t a god-fearing man, but he knew that any suffering his copy had endured could easily have been his own. 

He set about cleaning up the dishes he’d dirtied while preparing lunch. Jamie had spent a substantial part of the afternoon pondering the significance of the letter, and now the ample window in his kitchen let in a stream of golden light. The main thing he loved about his apartment was the abundance of broad windows, which let in plenty of natural light while simultaneously providing an unobstructed view of the sky. His favourite time of day was when the sky finally darkened, allowing the stars to peek through. In Jamie’s opinion, earth two looked the most beautiful at dusk. Most people had become accustomed to the mirror image of earth in the night sky, but Jamie still found it slightly bizarre. At Jamie’s request, his grandfather had never failed to share the story of the discovery of earth two. It had been discovered just over a century ago, when his great-grandfather had been a child. Jamie had seen pictures in his textbooks of the sky before the appearance of earth two. The photos were fairly low quality, but seeing the moon without earth two at its side had been chilling. The largest object in the night sky had been the moon, and now earth two dwarfed the moon several times over. He appreciated the beauty of earth two, with its swirls of vivid blues and greens, but he had spent many nights dreaming of a sky devoid of anything but the stars and the cratered surface of the moon.

Jamie figured his mother wouldn’t mind if he called her later in the evening, so he settled himself at the desk in his bedroom. He would pick up envelopes in the morning, but for now, he would start with a blank sheet of paper. 

_Dear Jamie,_ he wrote. _It’s nice to meet you._


	3. Found You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one definitely took a while. Sorry about that!

Jamie tore into the envelope as fervently as he had with the other letter. A photograph slid through the slit he had created and fell face down onto his bed. At first, Jamie did nothing but stare at the back of the photograph. It took him a few seconds to realize a caption had been hastily scrawled on a bent corner. _Me and Ty at Jordie’s new place_ , it read. Jamie didn’t hesitate before flipping the photograph over, where his eyes were immediately drawn to his own face. Jamie Benn of earth two looked nearly identical to Jamie Benn of earth. The only difference between them was relatively minor- their body mass. Jamie had never been a small guy. He had always towered over his classmates, and he’d always carried around an extra bit of weight, which had earned him the nickname that his friends still used- Chubs. However, the Jamie in the photograph appeared much stockier and had visible muscle definition. Jamie wasn’t unfit by any means, but he definitely didn’t look like the professional athlete in the photograph. It was a little daunting, seeing a version of himself he felt he would never achieve. 

He spent ages comparing himself to his copy before he let his attention slip to the unfamiliar face in the photo. Tyler didn’t look anything like he’d imagined. Jamie’s letters had always had a melancholy tone to them, and somehow it had manifested in his daydreams of Tyler Seguin. He had always pictured hooded eyes, a slight downturn to his lips, and permanently messy hair. Jamie was thoroughly mistaken, because Tyler was anything but melancholy. He knew right away that Tyler had one of those expressive faces that projected everything he felt, and he was positively beaming in the photo. His eyes were crinkled with laughter, and Jamie wondered for a moment what his laugh sounded like. He imagined Tyler tossing his head back at a particularly funny joke, letting out a roar of embarrassing laughter only a select few people could tolerate. Jamie found himself grinning at the blatant display of happiness in Tyler, and he felt that familiar fluttering in his stomach. Tyler’s smile was all teeth, and his nose had a delicate animal-like quality to it. Jamie liked it very much. He took a moment to appreciate the photo as a whole; Jamie was half turned to accommodate Tyler’s full body laugh. Jamie had a fond expression on his face, a hand in the back pocket of Tyler’s jeans. Tyler’s arms were wrapped loosely around Jamie’s waist, and his impeccably styled hair was lightly mussed. Jamie still hadn't stopped smiling when he finally stood.

Jamie slipped the photograph between the pages of an old textbook. He didn’t want to risk anyone coming over and accidentally finding the photograph. He didn’t know how he would explain away the heart eyes he was aiming at Tyler, or his defined biceps that no longer existed. While he was desperate to read the letter that came with the photograph, he had class to attend. He left the letter untouched on his bed, throwing on a pair of jeans and a hoodie that smelled somewhat clean. 

Class felt impossibly long. With finals coming up, his professors were attempting to cram as much information as possible into two hours. Jamie already dreaded finals, despite them still being a few weeks away. He had made a couple friends in his classes, and he perked up when Jason invited him out to eat. They had spent practically the entire semester trying to piece together readable notes, and it was always nice to have some extra time to chuckle over their professor’s tendency to venture off topic, and especially over brunch. 

“So how about that penguin story?” Jason said as they waited for their meals to cool. He managed to wait two minutes before he shoved half a slice of toast into his mouth. Jason played for their varsity hockey team, and he definitely had the appetite to prove it. 

“I don’t know, man. I was actually taking notes until about halfway through. I didn’t realize it was a story until he got to the part with the Russian guy.” Jamie let out a laugh as Jason nodded enthusiastically. 

“I saw you taking notes but just didn’t have the heart to tell you it was pointless,” Jason paused to swallow, “so what’s been going on with you lately? You’ve been kind of quiet. Well, quieter than you usually are, you shy fuck.” 

Jamie bit his lip as he thought about how to reply. He could potentially tell Jason about his copy reaching out to him, and he knew Jason would undoubtedly have advice to offer. He had never met someone as genuinely interested in helping others, and he had always valued their friendship for this reason. He tried to reciprocate as often as possible, but he wouldn’t deny the fact that Jamie probably benefited more from their friendship than Jason did. On the other hand, he could lie and complain about finals, which Jason would likely accept as truth. 

“I’ve just been getting a little stressed about finals, you know, regular stuff.” The lie came easily, and he felt his shoulders tense when Jason offered a sympathetic smile.

“Yeah man, I get you. It’s hard not to be when you’ve got profs like ours. I’m positive you’ll ace it though. You did great on the midterm, and the material is only getting easier, right?” Jason provided only encouragement, and Jamie grunted in acknowledgement. He felt bad lying to Jason, but knew deep down the situation he was in was too complicated to explain. Jamie watched as Jason polished off the rest of his eggs, and waved him off when he tried to pay for his own meal. 

“I’ve got it. It’s the least I can do when you let me borrow your shitty notes every class.” Jamie threw down a wad of cash, and stood to slip on his jacket. Jason raised his brows in surprise, but accepted Jamie’s brief hug as he left the restaurant in a hurry. 

He walked quickly back to his apartment, partly because the cold air bit at any exposed part of his body, and partly because he wanted to read the letter he’d received that morning. He shrugged off his jacket as he stepped into his bedroom, and immediately reached for the letter. 

_Dear Jamie,_

_I got your letter, and holy shit, am I happy you wrote me back. It’s good to finally meet you, man. I have tons of questions, but I don’t want to overwhelm you. I’m glad you don’t think I’m crazy or anything. I was thinking back on what I wrote, and I really wasn’t in a good place when I wrote it. I mean, I was telling the truth about Tyler, but I did go a little over the top. I guess I really wanted you to understand how much it would mean to me if you found your Tyler and met him. I realize now that I can’t force you into anything, and there’s no guarantees that you’ll find your Tyler, and even if you do, that you’ll actually like him. You’re a lot like me, though, so I think you and Tyler will be perfect for each other. I didn’t really get into why Tyler and I broke up, and I know you’re probably wondering. It was messy. I was so invested in Tyler that I didn’t even care when people stopped seeing us as two separate people. I kind of lost my identity to him. Tyler was different. He always said he would never become one of those people that completely loses themselves to their relationship. He was a big proponent of living collectively, but always maintaining individuality. But it happened with us. I mean, I wanted to be with him literally every second of every day, and he felt the same. It was kind of inevitable. We were inseparable, and we used the same body wash and had the same favourite foods and the same friends. But when he started to notice what was happening, he got so angry. He’s such a headstrong person, and when he realized he had been doing the exact opposite of one of his core beliefs, he started to hate himself. I guess it fucked with everything he had ever thought himself to be. He hated himself almost as much as I loved him. We’d been arguing for days, and I was so scared he would leave. I think what he hated the most was that he’d let me lose myself, too. He used to tell me I was his favourite person. He loved my shyness and my sense of humour and my ability to lead. It meant so much to me then, because I knew Tyler fell in love with people left and right. Not with them, but with the idea of them. Hearing him call me my favourite person meant so much more than an “I love you” ever could have. I think he hated that he had let his favourite person disappear. I didn’t see it that way at all, and I tried to explain that it was impossible to be in a relationship without losing a little bit of yourself. I tried so hard to make him happy again. I told him if he needed time apart, I would give him all the time he wanted. But he just wouldn’t understand. He left without even saying goodbye to me. It hurt a lot. I was so worried about him that I called his mom, and she told me he’d moved away. I didn’t bother to ask where. When Tyler gets an idea in his head, he follows through with it no matter what. I used to love that about him. Now I fucking hate it. Looking back now, it’s kind of funny. No one took Tyler away from me. It was all him._

The rest of the letter explained where they had met, and where he would likely find Tyler if his copy was anything like him. They had met in their sophomore year of high school, when Tyler had moved into town and joined Jamie’s hockey team. They fell in love quickly, but didn’t come out to their friends until senior year. Jamie had written that hockey was so firmly ingrained in Tyler’s identity that he doubted his copy would be doing anything different. This gave Jamie the brilliant idea to google Tyler’s name. He figured if Tyler was playing hockey competitively, his name had to show up somewhere in the media. He waited with baited breath as the page loaded. 

_Tyler Paul Seguin is a Canadian professional ice hockey centre currently playing for the Dallas Stars of the National Hockey League._

His hands began to sweat as he clicked on the Wikipedia article. At the top of the page was a picture of Tyler Seguin- his Tyler, wearing the victory green jersey of the Dallas Stars. Jamie let out a breath as his fingers traced over Tyler’s smirking face. He looked perfectly identical to the man whose photograph was tucked into his anatomy textbook. 

“Wow,” Jamie mumbled in disbelief, “how am I supposed to meet you now?” 

His muted apartment had no answer.


End file.
